Chinese walls and KPMG

Sir, – The Chinese walls now needed in major legal and accountancy firms must be a hardship for staff. Who knows what tensions arise between colleagues now working in possibly adversarial roles cleaning up the messes of the banking crisis?

Take KPMG's involvement with INBS. KPMG is quoted as saying, "The special liquidators of IBRC will not comment on matters that pertain to KPMG's role as auditors to INBS" ("KPMG wanted Fingleton back on INBS board in 2008", Front Page, July 3rd).

The special liquidators would of course be KPMG and the fact they find it necessary to refer to themselves in the third party indicates their own concerns with getting in a tangle. In the interests of clarity perhaps we should refer to the firm that audited INBS as Provisional KPMG, the special liquidators as Continuity KPMG and those who produced a special report in 2008 (after the bank guarantee) supporting Michael Fingleton’s business model as Real KPMG. – Yours, etc,

ROBERT CARROLL,

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